60. Peter Marino

A Peter Marino–designed store works like a Ouija board: Customers float in a preordained direction—to a cash register. His eponymous firm, the go-to for the fashion houses Chanel, Christian Dior, and Louis Vuitton, finishes 80 projects per year and has to turn down a new project request every day. "Now that I’ve done more than 100,000 hours of design, ideas come in a nanosecond," he says. The 62-year-old explains some of the principles he’s applied to the Louis Vuitton flagship store in Tokyo, reopening in September.

MAKE AN ENTRANCE
Louis Vuitton asked Marino to make the brand more aspirational. Marino commissioned a Dutch art cooperative to create a light fixture for the entryway that looks like a glass box and acts like an art installation.

STAIRWAY TO SALES
Only 20% to 30% of customers ever leave the ground floor of a multilevel store, Marino says. He claims a success rate double that. For Tokyo, he opened up the staircase to create a view of the upper floors’ products.

POINT(S) OF PURCHASE
Every room in the LV store has two to three hidden cash registers. "You can’t have a line in a luxury business," he says.